Battle for Jobs

The New York Times published an article on Friday examining the battle for jobs between youth and their grandparents. It finds that senior citizens are pushing retirement back due to the hit their 401ks have taken, chasing what once were thought to be entry-level jobs for income at the expense of today's youth.

“The boomers are staying in the system longer, and that’s clogging the system,” said Mason Jackson, president of Workforce One, a federally funded agency that helps Broward County’s unemployed. “Many want to retire, but they can’t.”

He characterized the dominant attitude among employers now as: “In with the old and out with the new.”

While the Times quoted a senior citizen who complained that employers are not hiring seniors, their research proves that youth, indeed, have the hardest time in this job market.

The latest reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics buttress her view. The number of employed workers ages 16 to 24 has fallen by two million over the last two years, to 18.3 million, while the number of Americans 65 and over who are working has risen by 700,000, to 6 million.

[...]

The proportion of older Americans who hold jobs has also risen strongly — 16 percent of Americans 65 and over had jobs last month, up from 11 percent 10 years earlier. But for workers age 16 to 24 the percentage with jobs has fallen to 49 percent, from 59 percent a decade ago. As for Americans age 25 to 29, 74 percent now have jobs, down from 81 percent a decade ago.

“Younger people are taking an extreme pounding,” said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. “It’s worrisome because they’re not developing the experience and the soft skills that they’ll need and the nation’s economy will need.”

The article goes on to point out that the highest decrease in employment among youth can be found among males with little or no college experience.

One advantage youth have is no surprise -- their natural affinity for technology. Employers find that young employees take naturally to jobs relying heavily on technology. On the other hand, the story points out that youth need to be trained -- added time and expenses that many companies simply won't take on during these hard times.

The Times covers much of what I've been discussing the past couple weeks. An interesting read -- check it out.